Donegal Castle:seat of the O'Donnell dynasty (see below text for more images of interior and exterior)

The Royal Household and Administration

The administrative organisation
of the Tyrconnell realm depended heavily on the application of and recourse to
ancient Brehon Law, including leadership succession by elective competition,
under the principles of tanistry within an immediate kinship group, the
derbhfine, and on the hereditary functional roles of particular tributary
families. Within this framework,
the Royal Household was known in Gaelic as "Lucht Tighe" and comprised several offices that were performed
on a hereditary basis for over four centuries largely by the heads and members
of these families:

Lector and Inaugurator
of the Chieftancy: O’Friel

Gallowglass and
Standard-Bearers:McSweeney

Marshall of Hosts, of
Cavalry:O’Gallagher

Custodians of the
Cathach of St. Columba:McRoarty

Historians
and Scribes:O’Clery

Brehons or Judges: Breslin
and McGilshenan

Bards and Poets: Ward

Physicians: Dunlevy

Stockmen/Cattle
Drovers: Timoney

Other customary
tributary family positions included the following:

Bailiffs: McGettigan

Harper:O’Ciaragain

Steward:MacLinchy

Seneschal:
McGonnell

Butler:O’Cullinane

Servant: Crawford

Dynastic alliances

In late Gaelic Ireland, far from
the in-breeding of some other cultures, a complicated web of considerable
genetic diversity emerged as a result of the increasing frequency of
intermarriage between Gaelic, Norman and Old English stock.

This was the underlying reality
behind the old adage of the relative newcomer becoming Hiberniores ipsis
Hibernis, more Irish that the Irish themselves, adopting not only Gaelic
language, dress and manners, but adapting names as well, e.g. FitzMaurice
becoming Mac Muiris. Gaelic lords fostered their sons not only to other
families and clans, but even to those of Norman and Old English origins, and
vice versa.Inevitably, dynastic marriage
became equally cross-cultural, as both sons and daughters became the agents of
strategic alliances between great families of different origins. Both fosterage
and dynastic marriages strengthened the socio-political power-base for members
of the derbhfine to compete for the position of Tánaiste, tanist, and eventually succession as
Taoiseach, chieftain. The strongest or most capable, and not always the eldest
heir, succeeded on the enabling basis of prevailing political support, and the
prospect of military supremacy.

Donegal
Castle

from a 19th century engraving by Creswick and
Radcliffe, c. 1850.

The Castle in Donegal, capital of the Kingdom of Tyrconnell, was the seat of government of the O’Donnells, and the home of Sir Hugh Dubh MacManus O’Donnell, 23rd O’Donnell, King and Lord of Tyrconnell, and of his eldest son, Sir Donal O’Donnell, Seneschal of Tyrconnell and Sheriff of Donegal. The latter was assassinated in 1590 at the battle of Derrylaghan by his Scottish step-mother Iníon Dubh in a coup she mounted with her Scottish gallowglass mercenaries to prevent his succession to his father and to usurp power for herself and her first-born, Red Hugh O’Donnell. Sir Donal’s son, Donal Oge was reared here by his grandfather, Sir Hugh Dubh, and after his retirement there in 1592 probably also in the nearby Franciscan Friary, until the latter’s death in 1600. Sir Donal’s personal lordship was that of Boylagh and Banagh (Tír Bogaine/Baghaine), to which his son Donal Oge succeeded. This lordship descended to the O’Donnells in France, the last Counts of whom died in 1879.
Other Tyrconnell
lordships descended to relatives: Sir Rory O’Donnell, 1st Earl of
Tyrconnell held the Barony of Donegal, and his son, Hugh Albert, 2nd Earl also claimed the Barony of Lifford, as
well as the Lordship of Lower Connaught, which was however lost in the
Composition of Connaught in 1585. Other more distant relatives hailed from
other parts: Brigadier Daniel O’Donnell from Ramelton in the Barony of
Kilmacrenan, Colonel James Bruno O’Donnell from Ballyshannon in the Barony of
Tirhugh, and others later who were transplanted or migrated further afield to
Mayo (Newport, Castlebar, and Oldcastle), Leitrim (Larkfield), and Roscommon
(Greyfield), and other locations, and with émigré branches who established
themselves and obtained various titles in Austria and Spain.

Donegal Castle is a now national monument, partly renovated
by the Office of Public Works.